Pell brought the drawer’s paper down to the Undercroft at midday, because a Knot could only be opened where the Hold could see it, and because she had said she would, and she had never yet gone back on a thing she had said in front of a bread-oven.
She carried it inside her apron. It had been in the drawer for two hundred years, and it had been in her apron for the length of the Undercroft stair, and she could feel its edges through the linen against her hip, stiff and cold and smelling faintly of the Foundation’s Ink. She went down by the fifth step with one hand on the wall. At the bottom she stopped, and took a breath, and looked round the ring.
The Chamber had come down after the arch. Idrin was in his chair by the Keystone with his arm in its sling and a face the colour of paper. Tallow was at the Register table with the minutes open and a pen in his fist. Ysra stood at the stair-head with her slate under her arm and her eyes on the rope, and Harrow sat on the bottom step beside Pell with the count-cord that was not his in his lap, which Mireille had sent down with the Keeper’s compliments and a note saying he must count it again if he wished, and he had not yet decided whether he wished. Korrin stood by the wall, unBonded and silent. Gaunt sat on…
